Go WEST young man (and NORTH)

[Kuiper]

Cross posting from the 2026 schedules thread

Occidental

Very ambitious schedule for Oxy.  They open against Azusa Pacific, as we already knew, but then they play two out of state opponents.  The first is Gordon College (MA), which is kind of random, but the second is Trinity (TX) on 9/6.  Trinity has been hosting SCIAC and other Region X teams in San Antonio for years, but I haven't seen them do the return trip to any of them.  It looks like they are doing it in this case to play their former assistant coach Edward Cartee at CMS (which traveled to San Antonio to play Trinity last season) because the Oxy-Trinity game is listed as being at Claremont.  In any event, as if playing the DIII men's soccer runners up wasn't a tough enough game, Oxy then travels the following weekend to Ohio to play at Kenyon on 9/11 and Denison on 9/13.  Talk about a challenging three game stretch, plus cross-country travel, over 7 days!

[Ron Boerger]

Cross-posted from the Coaching Carousel thread:

Most new head coaches these days were assistant coaches before that or at least have some high level club coaching experience touted in their hiring announcements.  We don't hear about many full-time HS teachers and coaches getting these positions anymore.  Nevertheless, a guy with over 800 high school wins total, who leads his teams (boys and girls) to the playoffs 46 times in 51 seasons over 21 years at one high school, winning 91 playoff games, and has been named district coach of the year 29 times and state champion twice, sounds like a true legend and a pipeline to the talent-rich Dallas-Forth Worth metroplex.

Don't know for how long it was or even if head or assistant role, but the release mentions he "also coached with [...] Southwestern Assemblies of God (Nelson University)", an NAIA school in the region.  This story from March says he started the program there but provides little other detail other than to say he also coached there. 

[Kuiper]

Cross-posted from the 2026 Schedules thread

La Verne

Just like Oxy, La Verne has a schedule that is both random and ambitious.  They open the season at DII Westmont and then host George Fox (NWC) and Russell Sage (NY), which like Gordon (MA) is heading across the country to play SCIAC teams in what could be an attempt to recruit some California kids.  La Verne then travels to Texas to play Trinity and Southwestern before opening conference play at Occidental.  The team made it to the second round of the SCIAC tournament last season before falling to Oxy 4-1, so I'm sure they'll be looking for payback.

On a side note, Trinity certainly is filling its schedule with SCIAC teams this season with games already listed against Oxy, CMS (probably), and now La Verne.  Since the SAA has fewer teams than the SCAC and some of the weaker SCAC/ASC teams don't provide much competition, Trinity might have needed to travel more to get a decent strength-of-schedule.

[Kuiper]

Just when Caltech opponents could breathe easier because all-time leading scorer Etienne Casanova was graduating, the program announced that his younger brother Matthias has committed to Caltech.

[Kuiper]

Cross-posting from the 2026 Schedules Thread

Lewis & Clark

L&C is traveling to Southern California and playing CMS and Azusa Pacific on 9/6-9/7.  With CMS coming off a 4-10-6 record last season, I'm sure they won't mind if it turns out to be an easy win as they try to build confidence.  For Lewis & Clark, they are probably hoping that Azusa Pacific will be going through some transition between D2 and D3 and the loss of many key players will make the game more competitive.

Pacific University

Pacific is only playing two non-conference games - both against NAIA opponents (Bushnell and Evergreen State).  Last season, they played three, including two DIII opponents.  This is the kind of schedule that really hurts NWC under the NPI formula.  For teams that don't have the money or interest in traveling every season, they basically don't have any countable non-conference games unless schools travel to them.

[Ron Boerger]

San Antonio FC's USL2 team made its debut last night (a 1-3 loss to Laredo Heat SC) and numbers five Trinity(TX) players on its roster; GK Brandon Gongora (wearing jersey #1), defenders Leo Jauregui and Daniel Urquide, midfielder Mateo Machado, and forward Max Salinas.  Jauergui and Machado are incoming first years; the former started for SAFC's first team (USL) during a friendly against La Liga side Union Deportiva Las Palmas in 2025, playing 72 minutes.

[Ron Boerger]

In other Trinity(TX) news, Robert Rochelle, aka "d3vbwest", posted on his site that, per Trinity SID Justin Parker,  Trinity will opt out of the Flo cash grab with the Tiger webcast network remaining open to all, and that a formal announcement of that decision is forthcoming.  Southwestern, which opted out of the SCAC's Flo deal two years ago, unfortunately is opting into the SAA agreement.

[Kuiper]

In other Trinity(TX) news, Robert Rochelle, aka "d3vbwest", posted on his site that, per Trinity SID Justin Parker,  Trinity will opt out of the Flo cash grab with the Tiger webcast network remaining open to all, and that a formal announcement of that decision is forthcoming.  Southwestern, which opted out of the SCAC's Flo deal two years ago, unfortunately is opting into the SAA agreement.

For men's soccer games, the question is who will replace Scott Lebo, assuming he is graduating and moving on.  I thought he was the more insightful of the two (although some don't like announcers who talk a lot), especially since he had experience playing on the Trinity team.

[Ron Boerger]

Scott is moving on to pursue grad studies at Colorado College.

[Kuiper]

La Verne picks up a big D1 transfer.

Isaiah Barber, a 6'3" forward who played 44 games at UC Santa Barbara, including 16 in 2025 and 21 in 2024, is going to ULV for his senior year according to their Instagram.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DYvHTQAS8Zr/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

[Kuiper]

Some Region X schedules

George Fox

After playing 4 non-conference games last season, George Fox cuts it down to two, traveling to Southern California to play SCIAC opponents La Verne and Caltech.  From the perspective of NPI, however, it's actually an increase in countable games because in 2025 they played 3 NAIA opponents and 1 NCAA D3 opponent.  This year, they have two D3 opponents.  I doubt any of that matters to George Fox, though, since they went 5-9-6 last season and, like all NWC teams, they basically have to win the conference to go to the NCAA tournament.

LeTourneau

LeTourneau replaces Berry and Maryville with two other SAA opponents - Sewanee and Rhodes. They also replace a conference game against Schreiner with a non-conference game against Schreiner, which has moved from the SCAC to the ASC for Fall 2026.  That's kind of symbolic of the oddity of having two D3 conferences in Texas.  It makes sense that they would split in two to maximize NCAA auto bid spots and to regionalize a bit in the large Lone Star state, but regardless of which conference each school is in, they're still going to have to play each other because there aren't a lot of other D3 options available.

[Kuiper]

Cal Lu posted this about their Alum Kane Reese, who extended his contract with SV 1890 Westerhausen, which is in the 6th tier of German Football. 

I think that means its technically amateur, but he might be getting some per match fees plus a job in the owner's company or something like that.  Kane finished his Cal Lu career after the 2025 season, when he was named 1st team All SCIAC after scoring 7 goals and 2 assist in 17 starts at center forward.  He joined the German club at the end of April, possibly right after graduating, so kudos to him for continuing to chase his dream or at least extend his playing days a little while.  I'm sure he'll have more stories to tell than those guys who go backpacking in Europe after graduation!

[Kuiper]

Cross-posted from the 2026 Schedules Thread

A couple of really interesting schedules from our in Region X

Redlands

New Redlands coach Alex Ortega has constructed a pretty ambitious schedule for his first year after leaving Amherst for the west coast.  They added SCIAC and D3 newcomer Azusa Pacific to the schedule in place of UC Santa Cruz and Nelson (AZ) (NCCAA), but the rest of the schedule is going to be a challenge.  They had to replace a bunch of one-off games from a slew of long road trips last season in Ralph Perez's retirement tour on the east coast.  The positive is that Ortega managed to do that with a schedule that basically keeps the team at home or close to home until October when they travel to Eagle Rock to play Oxy.  They open against Whittier in a non-conference game, which is something I haven't seen SCIAC schools do very often, if at all, lately.  SCIAC teams play all but three other teams in a home-and-away series, so it makes sense to play one or more of the single game teams again, but most teams want to play against other teams for variety or to enhance strength-of-schedule.  For the latter issue, that won't be necessary for Redlands because not only is Whittier likely to be one of the better SCIAC teams, but they also have Final Four team Emory and SCAC finalist Colorado College visiting Redlands.  I expect Colorado College will be better this year as they should have all but two starters returning and all of their leading scorers.  Redlands is returning its top scorers - Beckton and Darmanyan - and some of its starters, but it doesn't have a goalkeeper returning with any college experience and it has an entirely new coaching staff.  Non-conference should be a big test for the team.

Colorado College

Always the most fun schedule for the variety, the ambition, and the audacious travel for the most deserted of island schools in all of D3.  The first weekend of the season they host Whitworth (NWC) and Wheaton (IL) (CCIW) (which rivals Colorado College this season for the most diverse schedule).  Both those teams also play Austin College.  Then, Colorado College travels to Southern California for the return game against Cal Lutheran (SCIAC) and the game against Redlands (SCIAC) mentioned above.  The following weekend, they travel to Wisconsin to play Carroll (CCIW) and UW-Eau Claire (WIAC). The next weekend, they travel to Lincoln, NE (8 hour bus ride if they aren't flying) to play Nebraska Wesleyan (ARC) and St. John's University (MN) (MIAC).  After that they open SCAC play by flying to Arkansas to play Hendrix and Ozarks.  After 9-4/9-5, they don't have another home game until 10-9/10-11 when St. Thomas and Centenary travel to Colorado Springs.  That's a heck of a lot of travel the first month of the season!